This invention relates generally to archery equipment and in particular to a bow-mounted rear site for improving shooting accuracy.
An archery bow has long been recognized as a difficult weapon to fire with consistent accuracy. Conventional firing calls for the archer to sight the target by aiming along the shaft of the arrow. Depending on where the arrow falls in relation to the target, the archer will compensate it accordingly. Compensation may be required for such factors as distance, wind, speed and size of the target. Due to the extreme difficulty of making these compensations, the need for a device by which the archer may accurately sight the target is well known in the art.
Various types of bow sights are known in the art. Many of these sights employ only a single sighting element or pin mounted adjacent to the bow. The archer uses the bow string or a sighting eyelet positioned in the bow string in conjunction with the sight pin to aim the arrow. One limitation of such sighting devices is that when the string is drawn close to the archer""s eye, the archer will have a blurred view of the sight pin, which makes it difficult to accurately aim at the target. Another limitation is that each archer normally positions the drawn string in a slightly different relationship relative to his body, depending upon his own shooting style. Therefore, inaccurate and inconsistent shooting may result.
Other sighting devices use front and rear sights to facilitate aiming at the target. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,169, describes a front and rear sight for use in compensating for improper torsional positioning of the archery bow. The ""169 patent describes a rear site having an oval housing accommodating a cross hair, the rear site being mounted to a mounting bracket. The cross hair described in the ""169 patent is a vertical wire secured by suitable fasteners so that the wire extends through and vertically across the oval housing.
The rear site of the ""169 patent suffers from several drawbacks. First, the ""169 patent is easily adjustable in only the vertical plane with respect to the bow frame. To accomplish horizontal adjustment, the ""169 patent requires complete removal and subsequent re-attachment of the rear site from the bow frame. This feature of the ""169 patent does not allow convenient horizontal adjustment in the field.
Second, the ""169 patent uses an inactive system that does not place the cross hair in constant tension. Thus, the ""169 patent requires the use of a rigid cross hair capable of retaining a vertical orientation. Without tension to maintain the integrity of the cross hair, inclement weather and/or humid conditions may cause a non-rigid cross hair to deteriorate and result in impaired shooting accuracy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,301, describes a rear site having a pair of spaced apart, parallel sighting line members mounted behind an archery bow frame for use in compensating for improper torsional positioning. As with the ""169 patent above, the ""301 patent also uses an inactive system for retaining the rear sighting members in a vertical position.
Although sighting devices having front and rear sights are known in the art, many of these devices are not adapted for use with a multi-pin front sight, which is the most common and popular type of bow sight, and can be used only in conjunction with specially matched front and rear sights.
Accordingly, the present invention provides an archery bow rear sight adapted for use with any front sight, including a multi-pin front sight. The rear bow sight of the present invention has an attachment member with a first end defining one or more cavities and a second end defining a vertical slot. The attachment member is mounted to a central portion of the bow at one end and attached to an elongated member at the other. The vertical slot of the attachment member allows the rear sight of the present invention to be positioned at a preselected vertical location with respect to the central portion of the bow. The elongated member is threaded to allow the rear sight to be rotated about an axis of rotation and longitudinally adjusted with respect to the central portion of the bow.
The present invention provides a rear sighting assembly comprising a tension bearing member that is mountable to the elongated member. A cross hair is attached to each end of the tension bearing member such that the cross hair is maintained in constant tension therebetween. The tension bearing member provides an active system that maintains the cross hair in a substantially vertical orientation regardless of inclement weather conditions.